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Four Asian Filmmakers Visualize the Transnational Imaginary Stephen Edward Spence University of New Mexico

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Four Asian Filmmakers Visualize the Transnational Imaginary Stephen Edward Spence University of New Mexico University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository American Studies ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 4-17-2017 "Revealing Reality": Four Asian Filmmakers Visualize the Transnational Imaginary Stephen Edward Spence University of New Mexico Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds Part of the American Studies Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons Recommended Citation Spence, Stephen Edward. ""Revealing Reality": Four Asian Filmmakers Visualize the Transnational Imaginary." (2017). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds/54 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Studies ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i Stephen Edward Spence Candidate American Studies Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Rebecca Schreiber, Chairperson Alyosha Goldstein Susan Dever Luisela Alvaray ii "REVEALING REALITY": FOUR ASIAN FILMMAKERS VISUALIZE THE TRANSNATIONAL IMAGINARY by STEPHEN EDWARD SPENCE B.A., English, University of New Mexico, 1995 M.A., Comparative Literature & Cultural Studies, University of New Mexico, 2002 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy American Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2017 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project has been long in the making, and therefore requires substantial acknowledgments of gratitude and recognition. First, I would like to thank my fellow students in the American Studies Graduate cohort of 2003 (and several years following) who always offered support and friendship in the earliest years of this project. I would also like to thank faculty and staff in general in American Studies, past and present, for providing support and assistance through my entire experience as a graduate student, in particular Professors Beth Bailey, Amanda Cobb, Alex Lubin, and Eric Porter. Special thanks to Sandy Rodrigue for extraordinary assistance in keeping the paperwork moving and the process on track. The department staff and faculty are to be commended for their commitment to their students. Tremendous thanks go to each member of my committee: the most supportive, helpful, and encouraging committee I could have imagined. Each professor was instrumental at a different pivotal point in this process. Gratitude goes to Luisela Alvaray for reintroducing me to film studies at the end of my coursework and especially for the insightful and helpful commentary on each of these chapters. To Alyosha Goldstein for his brilliance in explaining theory in everyday language as well as for recognizing an early draft of Chapter 2 as worthy for publication, reinvigorating my belief that this goal was not only achievable, but might also be well-received by others. To Rebecca Schreiber, whose guidance through this process at every level was exceptional, addressing both the technicalities of what iv needed to be accomplished, but also the other pressures of life, and always keeping the path clear of obstacles and the view unclouded. This could not have been done without you. Finally, boundless thanks to Susan Dever for being my mentor, champion, and inspiration since our Film Noir class in the Fall of 1994. From then till now, thank you for your constant enthusiasm and for always “getting it.” As a full-time staff member at UNM throughout this process, it is important to recognize the role that my colleagues have played in the completion of this achievement. I heartily thank my managers past and present (Duane Arruti, Ivan Boyd, Gil Gonzales, and Alesia Torres) for offering the time and flexibility I needed to complete the project, but most importantly for underscoring and reaffirming the importance of the end goal, especially since the area of research was not directly applicable to our area of work. In addition, I sincerely thank coworkers and members of my team who always had words of encouragement or who helped to keep the lights on when I needed them to, including Tuan Bui, John Colangelo, Jeff Gassaway, Greg Gomez, Jermaine Grayson, Miranda Harrison-Marmaras, Linda Johansen, Sue Jones, Danny Lee, Scott Parker, John Paez, Gabe Rael, Andrea Rodgers, Neil Sabol, Ann Swancer, Sonya Torrez, and probably many more. I would also like to thank the filmmakers in my work whose careers have been endlessly fascinating to me. I look forward to watching more in the future. I would also like to acknowledge several key writers and artists whose work influenced my own in key ways, but who passed away during its production: Benedict Anderson, Miriam Hansen, Abbas Kiarostami, and Edward Yang. v Finally, my entire family has helped in every way possible over the course of this journey. Thank you to my in-laws Susan and Peter Soliz for regularly providing space to work on this by watching the kids and helping us all so much. Thanks to my sister Tracy for all her love and support. Thank you to my own parents Jan and Ed Spence for their endless and ongoing reassurance and counseling, but mostly for never once questioning the value of pursuing a humanities degree at any level. Thank you to Archer and Lyra for cheering me on (even if you didn’t quite know for what!) and for helping to take my mind off of this project when I needed to. Finally, my greatest debt of gratitude goes to my partner Sarah Soliz, twice over. First, for lending me her tremendous powers of editing, which turned my long stringy globs of words into a readable and more concise form of what I was trying to say anyway. Second and most importantly, thank you for indulging me in taking on this crazy goal and for loving me anyway. vi "REVEALING REALITY": FOUR ASIAN FILMMAKERS VISUALIZE THE TRANSNATIONAL IMAGINARY by Stephen Edward Spence B.A., English, University of New Mexico, 1995 M.A., Comparative Literature & Cultural Studies, University of New Mexico, 2002 Ph.D., American Studies, University of New Mexico, 2017 ABSTRACT This dissertation posits that four Asian filmmakers engage in “revealing reality” in unique but interconnected ways that employ innovative narrative and cinematic/visual techniques, including a direct address to the senses and an augmenting of their vision with fantasy or surrealism. My study argues that Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwan), Jia Zhangke (China), Tsai Ming-liang (Taiwan), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) mobilize this visual and narrative strategy to participate in debates about globalization and to comment on the state of their respective nations, the concept of the nation, and the transnational. The films of each artist are examined in detail; I investigate their stylistic choices and their works’ cultural significance on local and global terms in relation to critical theory, particularly postcolonial theory. The dissertation argues that these filmmakers’ works both constitute and conceive the transnational imaginary, the space within which border gnosis and subaltern pasts are produced. It counters arguments that one cannot posit cultural explanations for a filmmaker’s stylistic choices and argues that there is vii a way to read a filmmaker’s style and films as politically significant. Overall, the project posits film as an analytical tool, and employs interdisciplinary methods used by scholars in film or cultural and media studies who engage with these lenses and frames. By analyzing the technique and the political implications of several films by each filmmaker in a transnational context, it expands the boundaries of American Studies, charting a nexus of border gnosis, subaltern pasts, and the transnational imaginary. Together, this dissertation supports the argument that the varieties of realism developed throughout this region during this period have expanded the transnational imaginary and have contributed to discourse on globalization, postcolonialism, and the multicultural project. Each artist's modification or manipulation of the tenets or rules of realism are suited to their purpose and their aim to “reveal reality,” and this revelation is aimed at twin goals of beauty and political truth. viii Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 Film as a Tool for Critical Analysis ................................................................................. 15 Film Studies in the Transnational Era ........................................................................... 22 Chapter 2 – Life as an Ocean: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Puppetmaster .............. 46 Popular and Academic Reception of Hou ..................................................................... 50 The Puppetmaster, Subaltern Pasts, and the Decolonial Imaginary ....................... 52 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 74 Chapter 3 – Revealing Reality in a Changing Nation: Jia Zhangke ................... 81 Platform .............................................................................................................................. 91 Unknown Pleasures ......................................................................................................
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